Millennials will go back to farming but won't settle for tradition

Nearly 100 million acres of farmland will change hands between 2015 and 2019. For young farmers such as myself, it’s an extremely expensive barrier to entry into the farming world if you don’t have family ties in the industry. Often times, the only way to get started without a family connection is to work in livestock, vegetables or food grade products that offer a premium.

Plus, land is hard to come by unless you have a high net worth — but what young person has that kind of money? You’re competing against farmers who have been around a long time and people who are willing to pay high rental rates. Some beginning farmer programs provide incentives to help overcome these challenges, but it’s still a slow grind.

At the same time, many of us millennials grew up in a period of very productive agriculture — and now, the economic realities of what we’re coming back to are very different than what might have been expected. Kids are coming back to realize that the life of the farm is hard work and not a lot of glamour. I surely wasn’t fully prepared for the lifestyle change or the year-round demands. Let’s put it this way: I’m an avid golfer but rarely can I get in even five rounds per year.

Fortitude and perseverance are the most important skills for young farmers, but are not qualities typically associated with millennials. All of this implies that young people will not come back to the farm, leaving the future of agriculture quite vulnerable.

Well, here’s my take, direct from the mouth of someone born in the 1990s: Younger farmers will come back to agriculture. In fact, the younger growers I know have an unprecedented passion and excitement for farming.

We absolutely need reforms and new incentives to bring more young farmers into the industry and to lower the barrier to entry, but the competitive advantage into the future is for those producers that are willing to accept and embrace change and technology, and to try new things. That means younger growers.

Right now, scores of data from precision ag tools can tell us that sometimes what our parents have been doing on the farm for the past quarter century is inefficient or even harmful for our crops or the planet. But it’s hard to teach the older generation new tricks. Change isn’t easy for the traditionalists in our industry, but it offers the best chance to get ahead, make our farms more resilient, and protect our profitability.

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Millennial farmers will be better positioned than the generation ahead of us when it comes to land resiliency in the face of weather extremes, because we trust in the science, data and technology that shows how we can protect our farms without sacrificing productivity. We also recognize and are often part of the consumer push for more transparency, sustainably grown food, and corporate responsibility — suggesting that conservation practices make good business sense.

Technology offers us a plethora of new options and tools to improve the way we farm. We’re empowered to track many parts of the production process simply through a smartphone. We will enjoy obsessing over all of the data and insight on how we can improve not just our bottom line, but also the natural resources on which we depend. Then we’ll share our best practices and experiences on social media, for others to learn from.

My call to younger people considering a career in agriculture is to challenge our great industry's traditional mindset. Whoever said that a farm must look like a Grant Wood painting, or fit into an Old McDonald nursery rhyme? Why should "farming" mean that you must work outside from dusk until dawn, work with your hands, operate large equipment, and pray that Mother Nature doesn't send a hail storm to wipe out half your crop?

Our generation is too creative and too blessed by technological advances to "settle" for tradition. Create your own version of a farm, whether in a city or the middle of nowhere, and grow whatever your heart desires. Our farm, a fourth-generation "traditional" row crop farm in Iowa, is exploring how to do just that by raising crops indoors using automation. It may be basil, lettuce and arugula instead of corn and soybeans — but why should that matter? At the end of the day, our mission remains the same: we're striving every day to be good stewards of our natural resources to help feed the world. That's a tradition that doesn't need to be challenged.

SCOTT HENRY, 27, is partner and business development manager for LongView Farms in Nevada, Ia., and adviser to the Environmental Defense Fund.